The Republics of the Soviet Union or the Union Republics of the Soviet Union were administrative units that reported directly to the Government of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was a highly centralized state.
| Map of the Union Republics from 1956-1991 | |||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Soviet socialist republic |
member since |
population (1989) |
pop./ USSR pop. (%) |
area (km²) (1991) |
area/ USSR area (%) |
capital |
independent state |
No. | |||||||
| 1922 | 147,386,000 | 51.40 | 17,075,400 | 76.62 | Moscow | 1 | |||||||||
| 1922 | 51,706,746 | 18.03 | 603,700 | 2.71 | Kiev (Kharkov before 1934) |
2 | |||||||||
| 1924 | 19,906,000 | 6.94 | 447,400 | 2.01 | Tashkent (Samarkand before 1930) |
4 | |||||||||
| 1936 | 16,711,900 | 5.83 | 2,727,300 | 12.24 | Alma-Ata | 5 | |||||||||
| 1922 | 10,151,806 | 3.54 | 207,600 | 0.93 | Minsk | 3 | |||||||||
| 1936 | 7,037,900 | 2.45 | 86,600 | 0.39 | Baku | 7 | |||||||||
| 1936 | 5,400,841 | 1.88 | 69,700 | 0.31 | Tbilisi | 6 | |||||||||
| 1929 | 5,112,000 | 1.78 | 143,100 | 0.64 | Dushanbe | 12 | |||||||||
| 1940 | 4,337,600 | 1.51 | 33,843 | 0.15 | Kishinev | 9 | |||||||||
| 1936 | 4,257,800 | 1.48 | 198,500 | 0.89 | Frunze | 11 | |||||||||
| 1940 | 3,689,779 | 1.29 | 65,200 | 0.29 | Vilnius | 8 | |||||||||
| 1924 | 3,522,700 | 1.23 | 488,100 | 2.19 | Ashkhabad | 14 | |||||||||
| 1936 | 3,287,700 | 1.15 | 29,800 | 0.13 | Yerevan | 13 | |||||||||
| 1940 | 2,666,567 | 0.93 | 64,589 | 0.29 | Riga | 10 | |||||||||
| 1940 | 1,565,662 | 0.55 | 45,226 | 0.20 | Tallinn | 15 | |||||||||